Colossal pyramids, imposing temples, golden treasures, enigmatic hieroglyphs, powerful pharaohs, strange gods, and mysterious mummies are features of Ancient Egyptian culture that have fascinated people over the millennia. The Bible refers to its gods, rulers, and pyramids. Neighboring cultures in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean wrote about its god-like kings and its seemingly endless supply of gold. The Greeks and Romans describe aspects of Egypt's culture and history.
As the 19th century began, the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt highlighted the wonders of this ancient land, and public interest soared. Not long after, Champollion deciphered Egypt's hieroglyphs and paved the way for other scholars to reveal that Egyptian texts dealt with medicine, dentistry, veterinary practices, mathematics, literature, and accounting, and many other topics. Then, early in the 20th century, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun and its fabulous contents. Exhibitions of this treasure a few decades later resulted in the world's first blockbuster, and its revival in the 21st century has kept interest alive.
Join Dr. David Silverman, Professor of Egyptology at Penn, Curator in Charge of the Egyptian Section of the Penn Museum, and curator of the Tutankhamun exhibitions on a guided tour of the mysteries and wonders of this ancient land. He has developed this online course and set it in the galleries of the world famous Penn Museum. He uses many original Egyptian artifacts to illustrate his lectures as he guides students as they make their own discovery of this fascinating culture.
This course focused on five key areas in the study of Ancient Egypt: 1) Principles of Egyptian Art, 2) The Basics of the Language of Ancient Egypt: Hieroglyphs, 3) Egyptian Magic, 4) Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and the Religion of the Aten, and 5) The Burial of Tutankhamun and the Search for his Tomb.
This course is intended to accompany, and ideally to follow, Introduction to Ancient Egypt (also available on Coursera).

Taught By

David P. Silverman

Eckley Brinton Coxe, Jr. Professor of Egyptology

Transcript

An area of Egyptian magic that I've had the opportunity to write on a few times is the curse. I'm sure that you've heard of the curse of King Tut and The Curse of the Pharaohs. The often quoted curse of King Tut is, "They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift be visited by the wings of death." It is not a curse that's ever been found in Ancient Egypt. It certainly was not carved or painted on any item in the tomb. Moreover, nothing like it was carved or painted on any part or the exterior or interior of the tomb. The only item of King Tut that could conceivably relate to a curse was a magical brick. He actually had many more than just one. It's one of a series of four amuletic devices to protect the deceased from the evil coming from any of the four cardinal points. His magical brick is not really a curse. The inscription warned demons from the north, the south, the east, and the west not to damage the deceased or act against them. The bricks occur primarily in private tombs and Penn Museum has several of them. But these items do not, in any way, compare to the fabricated one in Tutankhamun's tomb. After this first fake one, a whole genre of curses developed. They, too, had no basis, in fact, and it filtered down into the popular culture. And there were many movies that were made that talk about this and show it as if it's real. And in reality though, Ancient Egypt did have curses, but not the ones that were in the movies. Most of them were meant as protection for an individual from something or someone. The person making the threat could be either living or dead, royal or private, and the target could either be living or dead. For example, one of them takes the form of a poison pen letter. And in this case, the writer does not end her correspondence with the typical phrase in other letters, "May you be well when you read this." She replaces that with a negative version, "May all evil fall on you." We also have execration texts and these were means of dealing with groups of negative forces, such as a host of enemies. And you can take care of this all at one time by listing the individuals on a clay figure. For example, on one of these statuettes are a list of people such as the ruler of Makhia called Y, born of his mother, of whom it is said a mere calf, all people, all patricians, all folk, all males, all eunuchs, all females, all officials in this entire land and the Medjay of Wabet Sepat, all Nubians, all people of Wawat, Kush, Shat and Bekes, their heroes, their runners, all Egyptians, and everyone who were with them, all the Nubians who were among them, all the Asiatics, everyone who was with them. There's virtually nobody who is not on this list. And what you're supposed to do is you smash it and it says at the end of this list, "And they will die." Surviving execration figures, therefore, are always fragmentary. There are magical spells for women and children, and they were especially popular for protection and childbirth. Sometimes, they appear on papyrus or are displayed in imagery on ivory wands or also on bricks. One papyrus has the question, "Is your mother not with you? Is no sister there to protect you? Do you have no nurse to offer protection?" And the solutions are at the end of the spell, "Let there be brought to me a pellet of gold, 40 bread pellets, a carnelian seal stone with a crocodile and a hand on it in order to fell, to drive off this demon of desire, to warm the limbs, to fell these male and female enemies from the West. You shall break out. This is a protection." In this example, it is phrased very much like the cases in the medical texts with a description of the problem and the following prescription to make it better. In this case, the curse is all magic. Magical or Heka protection can occur in a variety of forms and according to some scholars in this area, it was within the body of the priest, or the magician. To use it and make it effective, he would have to manipulate the spell and the ritual. He would be holding a scroll and reading. In addition, you can find symbolic imagery that represents protection against the forces of evil. Here, an image of a protective deity can, by its presence, prevent harm to the owner, and at the same time, represent him or her as the more powerful entity. A very good example of this type is the Bes jar owned by Tutankhamun which depicts the king as victorious over his enemies. As you can see from what I've shown you, evidence abounds for magical practice in Ancient Egypt. But if it is effective or not depends on whether the individual involved believed in the process. One could also say the same about the efficacy of the Egyptian religion.

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